Cappella Pratensis | Tim Braithwaite

For almost forty years, the Gramophone Award-winning ensemble Cappella Pratensis has been renowned for its innovative approach to the performance of Renaissance polyphonic music, being one of only a handful of professional ensembles in the world who perform directly from historical notation, as opposed to transcriptions in the form of a modern choral score. In recent years, the ensemble has dived further into the musical traditions surrounding this repertoire by exploring historical methods of improvisation and pedagogies, as well as working within the contexts of liturgical reconstruction. The result is an inherently immersive approach, in which the performers draw on a truly embodied relationship with past musical cultures in order to provide convincing and engaging performances.

The singers of Cappella Pratensis all specialise in Renaissance music, and many hold positions at higher educational institutions at European universities and conservatoires, including the Conservatoire of Amsterdam, the University of Vienna, and the Schola Cantorum in Basel. Cappella Pratensis also enjoys a formal partnership with the Alamire Foundation, International Centre for the Study of Music in the Low Countries (Leuven) as ensemble in residence. The ensemble’s programming draws on both the wealth of knowledge and experience within the ensemble, as well as collaborations with leading scholars in the field. Cappella Pratensis increasingly combines this approach with innovative performance contexts, including regular collaboration with actors, digital animators, dance companies, and composers.

In addition to regular appearances at concert venues in the Netherlands and Belgium, Cappella Pratensis has performed at leading international festivals and concert series throughout Europe, North America, South America, and Japan, including the Boston, Berkeley, Utrecht, and York Early Music Festivals. The ensemble’s recordings have met with critical acclaim and distinctions from the press, including the Diapason d’Or, the Prix Choc and, for the last three CDs, three consecutive Gramophone Editor’s Choice mentions. Gramophone magazine recognised the ensemble’s recording of the Ockeghem Requiem as the best out of more than twenty recordings made over the last forty years. In 2022, Cappella Pratensis won the prestigious REMA-EEMN Heritage Project of the Year Award with the CD recording Apostola apostolorum. The ensemble’s 2023 recording of Obrecht’s Missa Maria zart won the Premio Abbiati della critica musicale, was awarded with a Disco Excepcional by the Spanish music magazine Scherzo, and was rated five stars by the Spanish magazine Ritmo. In 2024, the recording won a Gramophone Classical Music Award, perhaps the most important award for Classical Music in the world.

Cappella Pratensis makes it a priority to pass on the wealth of knowledge and experience within the group through an established educational program, which ranges from introductory outreach sessions in local schools to appearances at international conferences and festivals, including an annual ‘Summer School’ hosted by the Antwerp-based festival Laus Polyphoniae, the group engages in regular workshops at a higher educational level, which have been held with great success at such notable institutions as Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford.

www.cappellapratensis.nl

Jonatan Alvarado is an Argentinian singer, lutenist, director and researcher. He began his musical studies on the modern guitar at his hometown's conservatory of Mercedes. He would go on to pursuing a Degree in Orchestral Conducting and Composition at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, while also beginning private singing lessons in Buenos Aires. During his studies he founded his own baroque orchestra, with which he would go on to give the Argentinian premier of Bach's John's Passion on period instrument, while also performing several works by Charpentier and Scarlatti for the first time in South America. Parallel to this, he developed a successful career as a folk-singer, culminating with his performance at the Cosquin Festival with his group Dos en Trío.

Taking the decision to develop his skills as singer and performer of historical European repertories, he applied for a Bachelor in Early Music singing at the Amsterdam Conservatorium where he was accepted into the class of Xenia Meijer. While advancing in his singing studies he also explored the possibilities of period plucked instruments, taking lessons with the lutenist and theorbo player Fred Jacobs. The combination of singing and lute playing in historically informed performances would lead to a Master's in self-accompanied singing, custom-created for his studies, resulting in a “Cum Laude” for his final examination recital.

During his time as a student he became the cofounder and co-director of the ensemble Seconda Prat!ca, with which he entered the EEEmerging platform, an initiative of the European Commission for Culture to support rising early music talent. The ensemble's high level of performance has led to their releasing of the debut album “Nova Europa” in 2016 with the Ambronay label, which garnered a coup de coeur and became album of choice of France Musique.

He is currently working with Dr. Rebecca Stewart in developing vocal techniques for historical repertoires and connecting early music with oral practices such as the folklore of his own country. This research has led to the recording of his debut solo album ‘Pajarillos Fugitivos’ released by the label Ayros. It includes Spanish guitar songs found in non-spanish sources, aiming to explore its possible connections and transformations within the realm of Latin-American traditional music and poetry.

With his ensemble and as a soloist he has sung and played in some of the most important festivals of his specialty including Ambronay, Sablé, Stockholm and Göttingen. He has collaborated with other musicians and directors such as Sigiswald Kuijken, Richard Egarr, Gabriel Garrido, Adrian van der Spoel and Eduardo Eguez.